Find Your Own Underground

This past weekend our family and aunt went to the largest free Irish Fair in the world! Quite the hype... The Irish Fair of Minnesota located at Harriet Island, St. Paul, Minnesota. We had been there a few years back with one child and had enjoyed the experience – the predictable food, the brazen kilts, the drunken dancing to amplified folky music. This year we enjoyed it again and noticed that like our family, the Irish Fair has advanced to another level, or two – though it was surely a folk underground then and is still today.

Image courtesy via CC

Something we noticed this time around is that the festival has grown in many ways. There are more tents overall, and these range in activity from kids stuff to Pub sponsored beer gardens to small stage events. Then of course the knick-knacks and cultural-wares tent, which was huge – and tightly packed. I could not bring the stroller through there. From this space, the boys came away with wooden swords - blue, red and green. They managed to avoid hitting anyone else at the fair with these things and so far at home have not damaged each other to any great extent, yet.

The food offerings seemed somewhat limited, but did pretty much offer the food you could expect – many things salty: cabbage rolls, a Jameson burger, fish n chips, bangers and mash - all offered in a cheap cardboard container. All of which of course tends to make one thirsty… This sentence sponsored by Finnegans - a charitable beer ;)

The Irish Fair is an underground, a subculture. Complete with kilts and swords and bagpipes and flags adorned with shamrocks and medieval dragons. There is the proud feeling of being safe to share and express yourself, your history, your culture (even when a bit tipsy). And it invites you to participate or just observe.

I am part Irish (Kelly clan), and obviously my boys are now as well. They should be proud! And though my wife isn't Irish, she still had fun and there surely has to be some neat Swedish thing goin' on... perhaps involving meatballs and lingonberries....

We are in a tough era... it seems important that we keep our heads and find our underground, our circles that we can rely upon to bring smiles and comradery and allow us to delve into something different than the day to day grind (and politics). We are all still individual ingredients that make up the American melting pot.

St. Paul is a fairly Irish place so it has a good strong backbone to start out with and plenty of undergrounds to delve into. Surely there are other niche groups and happenings, this was one small pebble in the ocean.

Find your own funderground.